Tape Casting and Dielectric Properties of Zn 2 Te 3 O 8 -Based Ceramics with an Ultra-Low Sintering Temperature Johanna Honkamo w and Heli Jantunen* Microelectronics and Material Physics Laboratories and EMPART Research Group of Infotech Oulu, FI-90014 Oulu, Finland Ganesanpotti Subodh and Mailadil T. Sebastian Materials and Minerals Division, NIST, Trivandrum 695019, India Pezholil Mohanan Department of Electronics, CUSAT, Cochin 682022, India The suitability of dielectric ceramics made of zinc tellurate (Zn 2 Te 3 O 8 ) and titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) with an ultra-low sintering temperature (6501C) for tape casting and thus for the multimodule technique with Al electrodes was investigated. The properties of the tape before and after sintering as well as the amount of organic additives for the casting process and a thermal analysis of the tape up to 10001C are reported. In addition, electrodes on a multilayer module made on stacked tapes were prepared using Al paste and postfiring, followed by relative permittivity and loss tangent measurements to verify the electrical performance of the whole structure. The dielectric properties of the stacked module without any electrodes were also measured. The results show that the composition is well suited for the tape process but extra care should be taken especially with the proper sintering temperature for optimized electrical performance. Introduction Low-temperature cofired ceramics (LTCC) have been widely studied for cost-effective, high-perfor- mance, reliable multilayer microwave devices composed of dielectric ceramic layers and embedded metal elec- trodes. 1–4 In this technique, dielectric layers are com- monly fabricated by tape casting, followed by screen printing of the electrodes, lamination, and firing. 1,5–7 Cast tapes are fairly thin, flat, and self-supporting, with the thickness generally ranging from 0.010 to 1.27 mm. 6,7 For cofiring, the sintering temperature of the LTCC tapes must be lower than the melting point of the metal electrodes (9601C in the case of Ag electrodes). 1 However, to enable wide and inexpensive Int. J. Appl. Ceram. Technol., 6 [4] 531–536 (2009) DOI:10.1111/j.1744-7402.2008.02296.x Ceramic Product Development and Commercialization J. Honkamo acknowledges the financial support received from the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation, the Tauno To ¨nning Foundation, and Tekniikan edista ¨missa ¨a ¨tio ¨. G. Subodh is grateful to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR, India) for awarding a Junior Research Fellowship. *Member, The American Ceramic Society. w johanna.honkamo@gmail.com r 2008 The American Ceramic Society